pickerył (piker i)

[Also piccory, piccorie; picket1 (pik'et), n. = For pickerie ducked at the yards arme, and so discharged Thomas Nash. Hakluyt's Voyages , I. 233. [ piquet , picquet , a little pickax, a peg, stake, F. piquet , a peg, stake, a tent-peg, a military picket, piquet (a game at cards) (= Sp. piquete dim. of pique , etc., a pike: see pikel .] 1. A It. picchetto ), pointed post, stake, or bar, usually of wood. Specifically-(a) A pointed stake used in military stockading. (b) A double-pointed stake used as a defense against cavalry. (c) One of a number of vertical pointed bars or narrow boards forming the main part of a fence. (d) A pointed stake used in surveying to hold the chain in its place by pa ing through an end ring. (e) A pointed stake used in tethering a horse in open country where there are no trees or other objects to which to attach the line. 2. Milit.: ( a ) A guard posted in front of an army to give notice of the approach of the enemy: called an outlying picket. (b) A detachment of troops in a camp kept fully equipped and ready for immediate service in case of an alarm or the approach of an enemy: called an inlying picket. (c) A small detachment of men sent out from a camp or garrison to bring in such of the soldiers as have exceeded their leave. See guard, post, etc.-3. A body of men belonging to a trades-union sent to watch and annoy men working in a shop not belonging to the union, or against which a strike is in progre .-4. A game at cards. See piquet. -5. A punishment which consists in making the offender stand with one foot on a pointed stake. -6. An elongated projectile pointed in front. The point may be conical, but is generally only conoidal, the point being made from the cylindrical body of the projectile by easy curves.